Source: Courtesy of A&E / lifetime
Back in September, it was revealed that Dominique Gardner, one of the young women featured in Lifetime’s Surviving R. Kelly docuseries and allegedly abused by R. Kelly, was expecting her first child (not by him).
More than four months later, her baby girl is here.
Gardner and a young man named Sean welcomed their daughter Kyla Fiona earlier this month. Her mother, Michelle Kramer, featured in Surviving R. Kelly, shared photos of her first grandchild on Instagram recently. She told her followers, “I am a proud MiMi and this baby is truly a blessing from GOD….I love you KyKy with all my heart…I will protect you to the FULLEST# I am my daughter’s KEEPER!”
So cute!
If you’ll recall, Gardner was the young woman featured in Surviving R. Kelly who was saved at the end of the doc by her mother. She had been spotted out with one of Kelly’s other “girlfriends,” and looked nothing like old images of herself. Her hair was cut short, she had a number of tattoos and was wearing men’s clothes. Her family has said that was a look forced on her by Kelly.
Gardner appeared in the most recent Surviving R. Kelly Part II earlier this month where she opened up about her experiences with Kelly and admitted that she returned to him briefly after being rescued because of the guilt of leaving behind Joycelyn Savage and Azriel Clary.
“I felt bad for leaving her because it’s like we was all we had,” Gardner said. “That’s not my heart. I don’t just leave people hanging.”
She found her way out again when he wouldn’t let her go to her little brother’s graduation.
After that second exit, Gardner said in a New Yorker interview that she was ready to move on from the R&B star and hoped he would get help.
“I just want to heal,” she said. “I just want my privacy.”
Since she’s been able to obtain that, including by having an Instagram account that is private, Gardner has been able to make the most of her fresh start with the support of her mother, who we know from the first doc worked tirelessly to get her child home. Now that she is a mother of a baby girl, Gardner has someone to fight just as hard for.
